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My favorite foreign policy guru these days is Eliot A. Cohen, a professor emeritus at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, who has emerged in what should be his dotage as an innovative critic of President Donald Trump. In a recent essay for the Atlantic, he suggests that the appropriate honorific for Trump ought to be “Dear Leader,” the one enjoyed by North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, who ruled, as does Trump, without criticism of anyone in his government.
I have been told that America’s Dear Leader has been given what should be a very delicate assignment: dealing with the increasing tensions inside Iran as the nation struggles with the fallout from Ayatollah Khamenei’s brutal repression of a recent revolt that led to “several thousand” deaths, by his own admission. The official death toll to date is 3,117, but that is viewed as grossly underestimated, with some counts reaching as high as 16,500. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards, a force close to 200,0000 troops, was given authority to shoot to kill protesters and did so with vengeance.
Overthrowing the religious leadership of Iran has long been a goal of Israel and many in America and Europe, as well as untold numbers of Iranians, but doing so will not be possible until the Iranian army, with its 760,000 active and reserve troops, excluding the Revolutionary Guards, agreed or was persuaded to take part. Planning for that possibility is actively under way again.
I was told weeks ago that David Barnea, the soon-to-retire head of Mossad, Israel’s lethal foreign operations and counter-terrorism unit, made a little-noted visit last month to Washington, accompanied by some military commanders, to discuss how to proceed when and if a decision was made to aggressively seek the overthrow of the Iran’s religious regime.
Such an operation, if it were to be authorized, would not take place for months, when good weather would be far more likely and there would be time for the necessary intelligence and commando operations to be trained and readied if needed. June was seen as a probable target date. Most importantly, it would also require careful nurturing of Iran’s regular army whose troops would have to play a major role if, as likely, some segments of the Revolutionary Guards would remain loyal to the religious regime when open resistance breaks out.
There was an immediate necessity, I was told, to reassure the skittish Iranian army leadership that if it were to take on the Ayatollah that America was committed to supporting it.
Careful messaging was needed and Trump, as is his wont, took on the role pugnaciously over the weekend. A Saturday New York Times headline read: “Trump Again Pushes Iran with War Threats and Unclear Evidence.” A day later on CNN: “Trump: If no deal is reached with Iran, the world will ‘find out’ if a US strike would spark regional war.” The inevitable response from Tehran came in a BBC dispatch on Sunday: “Iran’s Supreme Leader Warns of Regional War If US Attacks.”
The president’s public threats were welcomed by some American experts who have spent decades working with and advising the Israeli government on sensitive issues. One told me: “The opposition must have the military—and not just the army—for muscle and commitment to prevent Iran from falling into internal war among the many historic factions left over from Persian times. The US at every turn has encouraged revolution and promised support, but then abandoned them to their inevitable death and failure. The administration was warned this time it must prove its resolve from day one and to stick with it to the end. Trump’s statements may seem like stale bread to you, but it’s manna to the Iranian citizens.”
The expert then turned to the crucial issue: the role of Khamenei, who is responsible for turning loose the Revolutionary Guards and authorizing the ruthless response to the predominantly young demonstrators. “Khamenei and his loyalists have only tenuous control,” he told me, “but control nevertheless, which means the opposition that exists throughout the population is held back by fear and lack of organization.” Now, he said, in the aftermath of the recent slaughter: “There is discontent and determination to remove Khamenei within all levels and sectors.”
There is widespread agreement, according to the expert, that Benjamin Netanyahu, the contentious Israeli prime minister, would not be part of any future Washington plan to aid the Iranian citizenry in its ouster of the Ayatollah. It would “screw the pooch,” he said, if Israelis are “seen by the Muslim world as complicit in the overthrow.”
The official did not explain how such perceptions could be avoided, given that one of the Trump administration’s responses to the latest crisis in Iran was to host the head of Mossad for a meeting in the White House.